Person:Thomas Henry (14)

THOMAS F. HENRY, farmer of Lindle Precinct, is the son of Alexander M. and Nancy (Richards) Henry; his father, of Augusta County, Va., was a recruiting officer of the War of 1812. He assisted in recruiting the regiment that went to New Orleans, and intended to march with them, but his father opposed the plan, and he did not go. This was in Hopkins County, Ky., after he had removed to this State. Alexander M. Henry represented Hopkins County in the Legislature in 1826-'27. He moved to Union County in 1830, and settled near Caseyville, where he died in 1849, at the age of fifty-four years, having been born in 1793. Our subject's mother was from Spottsylvania County, Va., his grandfather, William Henry, was an Irishman, who came to Virginia in the last century, and on to Hopkins County in 1800. His grandmother, Elizabeth (McCune) Henry, was a native of Virginia; his grandfather, Louis Richards, was an Orderly Sergeant in the Army of Independence, who came to Kentucky in 1800; his grandmother, Lucy (Hunter) Richards, was raised on the Virginia Sea Coast. Our subject was born in Hopkins County July 25, 1818; his education consists of what training could be gotten in the schools of Kentucky at that early day; he spent some eight or ten winters in the schools of Union and Hopkins Counties. When his father came to Union in 1820, of course our subject came with him. He married Mary E. Hawkins, near Frankfort, Ky., on December 29, 1844. She died December 18, 1864. He was married the second time on July 9, 1871, to Mrs. Mary J. Shaw, of Bullitt County; her father was one of the pioneers who first broke land on the present site of Louisville. She died on November 6, 1884. There were five children born to Mr. Henry by his first wife; none by the second. William L. married Betty Sellars March 26, 1879; Ann R. married Thomas Russell August 28, 1870, and Charles M. married Mary E. Street April 30, 1885; Thomas F., Jr., and Emma C. are still unmarried. For thirteen years of Mr. Henry's life, he was a pilot on Ohio River flat-boats, but he abandoned the business in 1845, about a year after his first marriage. He has a farm of one hundred and sixteen acres, ninety acres of which is in cultivation. In politics Mr. Henry is a Democrat, and was elected to the office of Magistrate in 1883, but resigned in 1884, after his wife's death. He is an Elder in the Christian Church, of which he has been a member for fifty-eight years; he has also been a Mason for many years.

Source: History Of Union County, Ky, 1886. Reprint copyright 1969. Pages: 705 & 706